2.11/5
134 reviews
Photo by Daniel Abadia via Unsplash

San Juan del Sur

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power

surfing

affordable

beach

port

famous

surf

bit

party

buildings

excellent

village

rustic

hostels

playa

night

San Juan del Sur is a small, rustic beach town popular among backpackers, surfers, and partygoers. It's known for being an affordable destination with a laid-back vibe and friendly locals. While the main beach isn't ideal for surfing or relaxing, excellent surf spots like Playa Maderas and Playa Hermosa are a short drive away, though the roads can be rough and may require a vehicle. The town has a variety of hostels, bars, and some coworking/coliving spaces with decent infrastructure geared toward digital nomads and travelers seeking community.

There are regular power outages—especially at night—which can affect both electricity and water in some accommodations. However, certain places have backup generators or solar power, so it's important to check before booking. Internet quality varies, but some colivings offer high-speed connections. SJDS can be quite noisy, with traffic, music, parties, and barking dogs being common. The town has a strong social scene with events like sunset parties and the Sunday Funday hostel crawl, drawing a mix of short-term visitors and long-term expats.

Overall, it's a good base for affordable surf trips and exploring nearby destinations, provided you're okay with basic infrastructure and a lively atmosphere.

AI-generated summary of reviews
4 months ago

Port city near famous surf breaks. It’s a bit of a dingy party city, with not much to do outside of drink and go out to eat. It’s pretty boisterous with loud traffic, music, barking dogs and partying. Lots of travelers pass through for a few days and lots of expats call SJDS home. Rainy season was very humid and buggy this year (‘25). The power goes out but cell phone towers still work. When the power goes out, some buildings lose their water supply, too. Some buildings have back-up generators and solar power. It’s worth asking your accommodation how about their electricity/gas/water situation.

4 months ago

Affordable and excellent for surfing, San Juan del Sur is a small village by the beach, rustic but affordable prices, have a bunch of restaurants, bars, hostels and some coworking and coliving spaces.
San Juan is more like a fisherman port village so not many waves to surf there and the beach is a little bit dirty, however there are 3 beaches nearby that are excellent for surfing and clean, if you are a beginner or intermediate surfer: Playa Maderas, Remanso and Playa Hermosa, however you will need a transport to get there (takes around 30 min) and the road are not so good, still under construction.
San Juan del Sur as whole Nicaragua has some constant power outages, usually more at night and just for some minutes, the internet is so so in the most places, but you can find colivings with high speed internet, power generator or batteries that can handle for some hours.
I felt safe most of the times, although walking around at night alone is not recommended. Locals are really nice, and if you speak Spanish it's even better to connect.
Hostels take a significant part of the fun, some of them organize sunset parties at the beach and there is the famous Sunday Funday which is like a pool party in different hostels.
Besides San Juan del Sur, you can visit Popoyo for more surfing, Ometepe island for nature and volcanos and I also heard nice things about Granada.
If you like rustic places, affordable, with surfing, beautiful nature, I really recommend.

12 months ago

✅ Very affordable

✅ Friendly people

✅ Good surfing nearby

✅ Lots of fun stuff to do

✅ Warm now

✅ Warm all year round

✅ Good air quality on average

✅ Many Nomads.com members have been

✅ Spacious and not crowded

✅ Freedom of speech

✅ Safe for women

✅ LGBTQ+ friendly

✅ Not many people smoke tobacco

✅ Not a lot of alcohol abuse

❌ Frequent power outages

❌ Noisy environment

❌ Mediocre internet

❌ Dirty main beach

❌ Poor road conditions

❌ Not very democratic

❌ Expensive

❌ Not very safe

❌ Pretty slow internet

❌ Very sweaty and humid now

❌ Nomads.com members really didn't like going here

❌ Not many Nomads.com members right now

❌ Difficult to do business

❌ Quality of education is low

❌ Hospitals are bad

❌ Roads can be dangerous

❌ People don't speak English well

❌ Not family friendly

❌ Marijuana is illegal

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Feels (median)

31°C / 88°F hot

30°C / 86°F warm

29°C / 84°F warm

31°C / 88°F hot

32°C / 90°F hot

33°C / 91°F hot

31°C / 88°F hot

Real (median)

27°C / 81°F
warm

27°C / 80°F
warm

28°C / 82°F
very warm

27°C / 81°F
warm

Humidity

sweaty
80%

sweaty
76%

sweaty
74%

sweaty
76%

sweaty
78%

sweaty
84%

sweaty
86%

sweaty
87%

sweaty
86%

sweaty
83%

sweaty
81%

Most common

☔️ Rain

☀️ Clear

☔️ Rain

Rain

dry
21mm

dry
4mm

dry
5mm

dry
21mm

rainy
62mm

rainy
204mm

rainy
179mm

rainy
180mm

rainy
263mm

rainy
209mm

rainy
56mm

dry
14mm

Cloud

pockets
26%

pockets
13%

pockets
19%

pockets
32%

pockets
36%

pockets
41%

pockets
43%

pockets
45%

pockets
42%

pockets
36%

pockets
31%

pockets
22%

Sun

avoid sun
8 UVI

avoid sun
11 UVI

avoid sun
12 UVI

avoid sun
10 UVI

avoid sun
9 UVI

avoid sun
8 UVI

avoid sun
9 UVI

avoid sun
8 UVI

avoid sun
9 UVI

avoid sun
8 UVI

Remote workers

640 people

560 people

457 people

500 people

314 people

267 people

300 people

200 people

450 people

222 people

250 people

Green is good. Red is bad. Values shown are the medians of all daily highs in a month based on past few years, not necessarily current numbers. Remote worker count is estimated based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members.

If you'd like to filter destinations based on their climate, try Nomads.com's Climate Finder

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Members who will be here soon

Members who have been here

Values shown are estimated visits by traveling remote workers based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members. Visits to a place are only counted once per year per user, even if they visit more in that year. Visits are also normalized by overall trips added per month on the site, so if site usage goes up or down it does not affect trends. Not all digital nomads are on Nomads.com, and not all Nomads.com members log their trips. So the data is only indicative.

The chart below shows visitors by nationality normalized for population size. This means we take all trips logged on Nomads.com, check which country of origin the user is from, then divide that total visit count by the country of origin's population. If we didn't, it'd just show the big countries like US, Brazil and India always on top. Instead, this shows which nationalities worldwide proportionally visit more or less, which is more useful.

⭐️ Total score	2.11/5 (Rank #954) 134 reviews
❤️ Liked by members	👍2 liked it 👎1 disliked it
👍 Quality of life score	Okay
👶 Family score	Bad
🎒 Community score	Okay
💵 Cost	🙂 Okay: $2,605 / mo
📡 Internet	😡 Slow: 6 Mbps (avg)
😝 Fun	Good
⛅️ Temperature (now)	🥵 Hot: 28°C82°F (feels 33°C91°F)
💦 Humidity (now)	🥵 Sweaty: 87%
👌 Safety	Okay
👩 Safe for women	Okay
🌈 Safe for LGBTQ+	Okay
🤮 Food safety*	Okay
👮‍♀️ Lack of crime*	Okay
🤝 Lack of racism*	Bad
🎓 Education level*	Low
⚡️ Power grid	Great
🌊 Vulnerability to climate change	Good
💰 Income level*	Very low: $179 / mo
🙊 English speaking*	Bad
🚶 Walkability	Bad
🚦 Traffic safety*	Bad
✈️ Airline scores*	Great
🧳 Lost luggage*	Great
😄 Happiness*	Bad
🍸 Nightlife	Okay
📶 Free WiFi in city	Bad
🖥 Places to work from	Good
❄️ A/C or heating	Okay
😁 Friendly to foreigners	Great
🗯 Freedom of speech*	Good
🎅 Startup Score	Bad

🌍 Continent	Latin America
🚩 Country	Nicaragua
🗓️ Average trip length	14 days
📡 Internet speed (avg)	6 Mbps
⛅️ Weather (now)	🌧 28°C 82°F + 🥵 Sweaty (87%) = feels 33°C 91°F
🔌 Power	115V 60Hz
🚑 Travel medical insurance	Safetywing
💸 100 NIO in USD	USD 2.71
🏧 Suggested ATM take out:	NIO 10,000 = USD 271
💸 Tipping	Yes, 10%
☕️ Best coffee place	Republika Nicaragua
🏪 Best 24/7 coffee place	NomadLife
🚰 Tap water	🚫 No, not drinkable
♻️ Return rate	7% of visitors return
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Population	16,000 people
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 GDP per capita*	$2,151 / year
👫 Gender ratio (nomads)	👨 63% 👱‍♀️ 37%
🏞 Foreign land ownership allowed	Yes
⛪️ Religious government	Non-religious
🏠 Apartment listings	Airbnb
✈️ Best int'l air carrier	American Airlines

💵 Cost of living for nomad	$2,605 / month
💵 Cost of living for expat	$948 / month
💵 Cost of living for family	$1,562 / month
💵 Cost of living for local	$446 / month
🏨 Hotel (median price)	$4,610 / month
🏡 Airbnb (median price)	$1,622 / month
🏠 1br studio rent in center	$407 / month
🏠 Median home price	$5,438
🏨 Hotel (median price)	$216 / night
🏠 Airbnb (median price)	$53 / night
🏢 Coworking hot desk	0 / month
🍛 Dinner	$4
🥤 Coca-Cola (0.3L)	$1
🍺 Beer in cafe (0.5L)	$2
☕️ Coffee in cafe	0
👩‍🏫 International school	$4 / year
🚕 Taxi price (avg trip ~3km/2mi)	0 / trip